Slaying Casts Pall On Trial Reward Hits $5,000 In Secretary`s Death

February 25, 1992|By LISA OCKER, Staff Writer

The weekend slaying of a prosecutor`s secretary cast a pall over the murder and racketeering trial of a black supremacist and his followers on Monday.

Co-workers in the U.S. Attorney`s Office collected $5,000 to be offered as a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those involved in the shooting death of Pamela Crumpler outside her home north of Miami Shores on Friday night.

A legal secretary with the U.S. Attorney`s Office since 1983, Crumpler most recently worked for Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Scruggs, lead prosecutor in the case against Yahweh ben Yahweh and 15 of his disciples.

She formerly worked for defense attorney Chris Mancini when he was a federal prosecutor. Mancini represents John Foster, who took the name Enoch Israel when he joined the Yahweh sect.

``She was such a light, happy person,`` Mancini said outside the courtroom.

Interim U.S. Attorney James McAdams said investigators with the Metro-Dade Police Department and the FBI had found no indication that Crumpler`s slaying was connected with the trial.

``The information I have is that this was a random act of violence, a random robbery,`` McAdams said.

Crumpler, 45, was shot outside the door to her home, investigators said. After hearing her scream, her husband ran to the door to find her wounded and three men fleeing.

U.S. District Judge Norman Roettger recessed the trial early Monday to allow participants to attend a memorial service for Crumpler in Dade County.

In unrelated action in court on Monday, Roettger expelled defendant Ernest Lee James Jr. from the courtroom after James went berserk and had to be restrained.

The episode, which occurred out of the presence of jurors, came after a hearing in which the judge found James mentally competent to stand trial.

James, whose Yahweh name is Ahinidad Israel, was being led back into the courtroom by two co-defendants followed by security officers when he began to wail loudly and struggle.

``Yahweh, take me,`` James seemed to say to sect leader Yahweh ben Yahweh as the others tried to seat him.

Once seated, James ranted, blurted profanities and continued to struggle against the grip of co-defendants Robert Beasley Jr. and Walter Lightburn.

After several minutes, federal marshals managed to remove James from the courtroom.

Roettger said he had expected James to be disruptive after being confronted with a psychiatrist`s opinion that he was faking psychosis. Roettger ordered security officers to put James in a holding cell, where he could watch the trial on a closed-circuit television monitor, until he persuades the judge he can behave in court.